Tuesday, 27 November 2012

Miss Universe. Angolan. A rather shabby example of what us chaps have to put up with here.

After a
very promising start it suddenly and mysteriously died a couple of years ago.Since their intrepid correspondents laughed
in the face of danger as they risked all testing the food Luanda has to offer,
I assumed they’d visited a dodgy place and all perished from food poisoning but
no.The original authors (Frenchmen
desperate for culinary solace) finally came to the ends of their contracts
leaving Luanda Nightlife bereft of authors willing to spend their evenings
scouring the city for good food and then writing about it afterwards.

Until, that
is, Claudio Silva, epicure and man-about-town, picked up the regimental colours
discarded by the French, rallied his remaining troops and marched victorious once more
into the Blogosphere.

Claudio Silva. He is witty, intelligent, knows about food, can manage a website, his job, his own life and speaks perfect English. And he is Angolan. Fuck me.

Angola, and
Luanda in particular is booming.There
are new restaurants opening all the time.Nearly twenty years ago, when I arrived here, there were only about half
a dozen places it was half safe for an expat to dine, the prices were generally
eye-watering and the food uninspiring.I
kid you not, my colleagues and I preferred to buy chicken grilled by the
roadside.The food was no better but at
least it cost bugger all by comparison, was served quickly along with a cold
beer and we had loads of friendly Angolans to talk to.Now there are so many new and established
restaurants, Luanda Nightlife can even categorize them according to
ethnicity.Fancy a Chinese? Lebanese?
Italian?Check Luanda Nightlife
out.I never knew that there are now
Mexican and Nordic restaurants in town (what do Nordic restaurants specialize in?
Pickled fish and whale steaks? I don’t know, I shall have to go and find out).LNL also categorizes by average price (bloody
useful if you are on a daily ration allowance or wish to avoid the gut churning
feeling that fear of the final bill causes) as well as by name and offer decent
directions to each place they review.Finally, and this has to be all down to Sr. Silva, it is largely
bi-lingual so Angolans are contributing to the review data base.

In the old
days, routine and lack of diversion ground people down.Sure, some went the disco/whorehouse route
but the majority just sat in their staff houses going slowly stir crazy.Now, with Luanda Nightlife, there is no need
to be bored.

Claudio
would love to collate the experience of other diners so even though Fat Hippo’s
isn’t open yet, I am thinking of ghost writing my own reviews:

‘Fat Hippo’s!Wonderful cuisine!Now that’s what I fucking call fucking
cooking and a fucking well run fucking restaurant. Pity the owner’s a fucking twat.’Some Scottish
failed footballer who visited claiming to be an international Chef.

‘An epicurean
delight and such value for money!I even
received a bit of change for a thousand dollars!If the owner hadn’t been such a twat and our
accounts department been so strict, I’d have given them a tip.’Hewlett
Packard Executive celebrating his company’s recent acquisition.

‘Friendly, well
trained staff and the waitresses are so beautiful, if a little expensive,
especially since the owner, who is a twat, refused to add them to the invoice’.
Visiting
British politician on a tax payer funded fact finding trip to Angola, name
withheld pending proposed Gagged Press legislation.

‘Fookin’
Ace!I stoofed me gob, got pissed as a
rat and puked up al oer mesel.Owner’s a
bit of a twat like but tisn’t his fault, he din’t go to a gud skool like what I
did.Nowahimeen?’Her
Britannic Majesty’s Ambassador to Angola.

‘The food,
if any lucid individual could describe biological remains spewed onto cheap Chinese porcelain as such, was barely
this side of mediocre and the décor, appalling pseudo Africanesque favored
by those devoid of all taste. As far as the staff are concerned, if I wish to be reminded of the female form, I shall do what any Gentleman would and visit an art gallery. Clearly,
the owner is a twat but I confess to a certain fondness for his hat.’Quentin
Crisp.

Sunday, 25 November 2012

Chef: The
successful applicant should be tall, slim, possess long shapely legs, firm
breasts and a less than strict moral attitude to casual sex.Being able to boil an egg an advantage.

Now that I
am so near opening (so near is a relative term in Africa, but I live in hope),
I need a Chef.I like to cook and I like
to think I am good at it but operating in a commercial environment is a whole
new ball game.With all the ill-gotten
gains I have invested in this place it would be foolish to jeopardize the lot
by being vain.I need to employ a
professional.

I like
Angolan cuisine, to a degree.It is a
blend of Portuguese and ethnic African cooking.I love Bacalhão com Natas, dried salted cod, soaked overnight and then
baked in a cream sauce.I adore Muamba
da Galinha, tough local chicken braised for hours in a peanut sauce. I have developed, after initial revulsion, a
taste for Feijoada , a stew made with orange coloured palm oil, beans and all
the fatty gristly bits of pork no-one in Europe eats.I can even cope with Funge, the wallpaper
glue-like paste made from powdered manioc.I cannot stand the way they cook and serve steaks, wonderful cuts of
meat fried to a grey leathery texture; chicken grilled to desiccation; tender
fish fried in half an inch of oil, crispier and twice as deadly as high fat
crisps; soggy chips served cold and clammy; sauces, grudgingly made consisting
only of boiled up tinned skinned tomatoes and sliced onions.

The Angolan
palate is becoming as sophisticated as that of the many expatriates working
here so if Fat Hippo’s is to be a success, the menu has to be a little more inspiring
than stews or everything else served dry or greasy without any sauces or
gravies.To be a hit here, I don’t need
Haute Cuisine and especially not Nouvelle Bloody Cuisine, I need well prepared
classics.Venison medallions with wild
mushroom sauce, spätzle and red cabbage; Pepper steak with salad and crispy
chips; Chicken Ragout with steamed rice; GrilledTuna steak with watercress and yoghurt
salad and boiled new potatoes; Lasagne; an exotic curry; a selection of desserts.Cro Magnon has just posted showing how easy
it is to make paté.As clients
arrived we could put out a plate of petiscos for them to munch on while they
slaked their thirst from the bar and made their selections.With a decent chef, Fat Hippo’s could become
famous for venison dishes as I can shoot as many bush buck and other game as I
have rounds in the rifle.

But for
this to work, I need to import a chef.

Yesterday,
a mate of mine came to visit so I made up a load of lobster and a dill cream
sauce.He was outraged that I would
build this restaurant and then not employ a local.He said it was my duty to support the local
community by employing as many of them as I could.All well and good, my old German friend, but
it won’t pay the bills if I go bust because the food is no better, just as
crap, as everywhere else.We got onto
the subject of his coffee plantation which isn’t doing so well (he was visiting
me to pay back, thankfully, the last load of money I lent him so he could pay
his workforce until his harvest came in).

‘They are
all thieving, ungrateful Schweine,’ he said.‘Every time I come up into town they steal everything and, and, DO NO
WORK!’

‘Gosh’ I
said pouring him another whisky and mixing it with Coca-Cola Zero (he is
diabetic so has to be careful what he stuffs or pours down his throat).

‘I got back
there this time’ he frothed, ‘and they have dug a Lavra (a smallholding) right
across my perimeter road and into MY land!’

I could see
he was outraged.I felt for him, I
really did.I have a bit of a Land War
going on as well.

‘You should
buy a Gaz’ I said.

‘A Gaz?’

‘Yes.You know, one of those big old Russian trucks
weighing a million tonnes with six wheel drive.Then all you have to do is drive straight through the Lavra’.It was wishful thinking on my part.I’d love to do the same to these bastards here
so I was surprised when he took me seriously.

‘I have a
friend with a Gaz truck, I’ll do that as soon as I get back’.

‘Is he
Angolan?’ I asked.

‘Yes, why?’

‘Best let
him do the driving, me Alte Kumpel, or you as a white man will be in heaps of
shit.’

This man is
in his sixties and is surviving by the skin of his teeth and the Grace of God.

‘What I
really need,’ he continued, ‘is a decent farm manager’

‘I agree’ I
said, and I meant it.A decent farm manager
is exactly what he needs.Two thousand
hectares is more than enough for a young, fit man.Clearly it was far too much for an old man
who, through his lifestyle choice, had no sons to help him shoulder the burden
or to whom he could leave the not inconsiderable fruits of a lifetime of
struggle.I have heard stories of old men,
happily married all their lives, losing their soul mates only to die themselves
within months.If this man lost his
farm, I would be burying him just as quick.I have known him almost as long as I have been in Angola. Longer than I have known any woman. A year short of two decades.

‘Look,’ I
said, ‘a percentage of something is better than 100% of nothing.Why don’t you get one of the farmers that
Mugabe tossed out and do a deal with him?These guys carved successful farms out of nothing, vacant bush, a bloke
like that would be ideal and you could let them live in the villa’.His house is magnificent.It was comprehensively trashed during the war
but he has steadily rebuilt it over the last ten years.He was born there.

‘It was
just a thought,’ I pointed out, ‘but you are not getting anywhere at the
moment, why not offer a share to someone who can really turn the farm
around?Otherwise you had better sell it
and retire to Germany’.

‘Can you
help me find someone?’ he asked.

‘Sure,’ I
said, ‘can you help me find a Chef?’

The whole
of Europe is in a massive depression as the Eurozone goes into meltdown.Great minds struggle to balance books but
unemployment continues to rise, 25% in some countries, and unpleasant cuts to
social welfare are recommended.Those
who are in gainful employment in Europe lose over 60% of their salaries in
direct and indirect taxation.There is
talk of debt, mortgages in particular, being passed on to offspring. Legalized usury.

I need a
decent chef.My old friend needs a
decent farm manager.If the countries of
the Eurozone really want to reduce the social welfare burden, why is it impossible
for me to log onto a DHSS website and offer these vacancies?I travelled to find gainful employment rather
than go on the dole, I can’t be unique.I am sure that if others realized these opportunities existed, they
would leap at the chance. The UK Prime Minister has stated that he will
maintain aid to some very dodgy regimes.Funding that will arrive at the top and never filter down to where it is
needed.Aid agencies, with the exception
of those providing immediate disaster relief, are generally a complete and
utter waste of time and, of course, money.

Neither I
nor my old German friend is asking for an EU handout.All we are asking for is access to a
generally skilled and willing workforce.We will pay their salaries.We
will arrange their visas.We will
arrange their flights and accommodation.OK, between the two of us we will only take two people off the European
social welfare bill but if my restaurant works, and Hermann the German’s farm
kicks off, we can employ dozens of unemployed Angolans far more effectively and
sustainably than any ‘aid’ project dreamt up by some Eurocrat with brains
bulging out of his forehead.By
providing a freely accessible data base of available workforce, the EU could,
at no cost, reduce their social welfare costs and provide the skills required
for sustainable development in places like Africa all funded by small,
expatriate business.Sure, we will take
a share of the profits.But like I said
to my mate, a percentage of something is a damn sight better than 100% of
nothing, and guess where the rest goes, yup, local salaries and sustainable development.

So I need a
chef.If you are the kind of person I need and have read this far, you
know what I want and clearly have the patience to work in Angola so get in
touch with me.I will pay a decent tax
free basic salary and the usual, plus, after a three month probationary period
assuming we are still getting along, a share in the restaurant profits.If you are rugged looking, energetic AND can do
Patisserie, my wife will hire you regardless of any objection my intense hatred for you could conceive.If you are like the charming, sweet and obviously intelligent young lady pictured at the top of
this post and can only boil an egg, I will do my best but don’t hold your
breath.

Tuesday, 20 November 2012

Although
for a child the lifestyle here at the end of the road to the Barra de Kwanza is
idyllic, a child could still become bored.And bored children get up to mischief.The devil just loves idle hands.

I have
about half a dozen boats stored on my land.I remember when I had a boat and the awful hassle to trailer it all the
way from the city to here and then, knackered after a day’s fishing, trailer it
all the way back again.So naturally I
was delighted to let first one and then, as word got around, more keen
sportfishing boat owners park their boats here.I don’t charge them anything.For
a start, they will form the kernel of the client base for the restaurant so I
will get paid in kind.They also take
the boys and I fishing regularly.When
you consider that to charter one of Rico’s boats next door for a day costs
between $800 -$1200, I think their parking fees are more than adequately
met.Still, even though the boats are
parked here at owner’s risk, I bear a responsibility.

I had a ten
year old boy staying with me.He is the
son of the Filipino foreman building the house and new shop.I ran into him when I was visiting the site
to check on progress (glacial) and was concerned when I realized he was living
on site with his father.In this
malarial environment, a half-finished house with no glass in the windows is
hardly the place for a ten year old.Besides, building sites aren’t playgrounds, they are dangerous places.Now I didn’t know, or cared to know, about
the personal circumstances of my site foreman that would leave him with no
alternative but to accommodate his boy at his place of work but clearly, such a
situation was unacceptable.

At the
moment there are three of us living in the 16 square metres that will, once the
house is built, be the kitchen of the new restaurant.Squeezed in there is a shelf unit for our
clothes, a chest of drawers, a double bed, a sofa, a coffee table, a fridge, a
freezer, an antique hall table on which sits the TV and my desk and chair.Never mind not having room to swing a cat,
you couldn’t jam a cat in there.

So I told
the foreman the boy could stay with us.There was a mosquito net over the sofa so he could sleep there.He would also be fed properly rather than
surviving on the slops the building crew brewed up every night.I didn’t say this to the foreman but we could
also give the boy a wash and a badly needed change of clothes.I saw the bright side.At least little Alex would have someone to
play with instead of the urchins from the village who have turned stealing all
his toys and anything else not bolted down into an art.What I should have realized, of course, was
that keeping an eye on one little bandit is hard enough.Maintaining radar lock on two at the same
time is damn near impossible.

I was
sitting at my desk typing away when suddenly I heard a loud bang followed
immediately by a whoosh and then an intense hissing noise.

I have not
been on active service for many years now but there are some noises you never
forget.

I was asleep at two in the
morning on the first of the ten electricity generating plants I would build in
Angola when I awoke with a start, pulled my trousers on and ran out of my
accommodation unit and onto the site.Well illuminated as they were, I could see all the way down the two
lines of generators and everything appeared normal.A night crew were busy pulling an alternator
out for servicing and one of them, I noticed, was smoking.Bosses usually do not go for walks in the
middle of the night so I guess I gave him a bit of a guilty start.I continued down the line until I got to the
fuel farm, four big above ground tanks and that’s where I found the guard.His arm and leg had been shattered and he was
covered in shrapnel wounds and bleeding profusely.The noise that had woken me up at the other
end of the site, even with forty 1 Megawatt generators screaming away was the
sound of the grenade, that someone had thrown over the security wall into the
tank farm, going off.We had trauma
packs on site and I knew how to use them so the poor lad survived and will be
able to tell his grandchildren how a grenade exploded right next to him.

The noise I
had just heard this time was a parachute flare going off.I wasn’t properly dressed, it was still early
and I was only half way through my morning cup of tea.I had boots on but the laces weren’t
tied.I ran so fast out of the room and
towards the burning boat I actually managed to run out of my boots.As the tarpaulin covering the boat
disintegrated into a plume of smoke and flame I saw Alex stand up, arms raised
like little kids do when they want to be picked up and heard him scream, ‘DADDIIIIE!’.And I could hear others screaming too.

I hauled
the tarp away and hoiked the kids out of the boat.The little bastards had climbed into the
boat, discovered an interesting looking locker containing an interesting
looking container containing interesting looking tubes and, well, we know the
rest, don’t we?

I tried to
think of anything I was really good at.Then my brain started to hurt so I stopped that fruitless activity and
tried to think of anything that anyone else within striking distance was good
at.

Golf!

Alex now
gets four hours of professional golf lessons per week at the prestigious Mangais
Golf Resort (the cheapeast meal in the restaurant there is the simple buffet at
$100 per person).When I first went up
there to ask about lessons the pro, Sr Gonçalo, said Alex was too small.So I made a donation and Alex grew suddenly.Sr Gonçalo likes Alex and spends a lot of
time with him and it shows.I still have
the clubs I bought for Dominic all those years ago.They are too big for Alex but he uses them to
practice his swing at home.He is so
keen he can spend the whole day knocking golf balls up and down our road.Right now we are sitting over at Rico’s place
so Alex can stuff his face full of Spaghetti Bolognese and boiled cabbage, an
unlikely combination I agree but his particular favorite, to give him the energy
to knock balls around through the afternoon.

He is only
four so it is hard to have a serious conversation with him but I think he would
agree, golf is miles better than setting fire to boats.

Monday, 19 November 2012

I am sure
there are those out there who can best me at this but I reckon I have seen
pretty much the extremes of human decency and evil.I have seen the kindness that tireless nuns
provide the orphans in their care, others who risk their lives on a daily basis
in the service of others.Sadly I have
also seen those for whom the sanctity of human life has no meaning and its
awful result.The booby trapped mass
graves in Bosnia which, once I had cleared and opened up to UN inspection, left
me with the recurring nightmare of fathers cradling their young sons in death.The sight of women and children, frozen in
the agony of fires of hell, who had been herded together in an Angolan cellar,
had petrol poured over them and then been set fire to.The senseless slaughter from which
politicians distance themselves but soldiers are only a bayonet thrust
away.The deep personal tragedy of
having to fly back to UK and help my youngest brother bury his two year old son
who drowned in a neighbor’s swimming pool.

So why has
this recent incident affected me so deeply?Is it because I thought I had retired to some sort of Nirvana, at least
as close to it as I would ever get?Is
it because I am surrounded by nature so beautiful even the most cynical might begin
to believe in a Great Architect of the Universe?Is it because having buried everything so
deep I felt I would never have to face the darker side of the human psyche
again?Or is it because that with
hindsight, I realize I should have done more?

We were
sitting outside the shop on the concrete stoop, me and a few clients.It was a Saturday afternoon and, as usual,
the churchy religious types were in abundance.I am a Catholic but as far as I am concerned, the Catholic Church is
just as bad as any of those sects run by deeply sincere preachers who shag the
younger, evidently more desirable members of their flock while fleecing them
all.

Since the weirder
religions have taken over much of the beach front, the left footers now use a
stretch of river bank up river from my place so to get there, they have to walk
by my place and at weekends, they do so by their hundreds.Not with children, though, and not this early
in the afternoon.This did cross my mind
but, and this is a big but, I said nothing.The little boy, about the same size and age as little Alex was holding a
200 ml plastic bottle of mineral water in his right hand.He was dressed in little green shorts and a
T-shirt with a Spiderman logo over a pale blue washed out background with the
seam of his right shoulder coming undone revealing his small bony shoulder.I noticed that because Alex is nuts about
Spiderman.His left hand was held by presumably
his mother and he was walking along in his flip flops while looking up at her
and chatting away like any four year old does when out for a walk.They did not stop at the shop.Had they done so, I would have given the kid
a lollipop or maybe a sticky bun.Marcia
says she hates it when I do that.She
says I am giving away her profits but I know deep down she really doesn’t mind.

A little
while later I saw the same woman coming back.At least I thought it was her but she was alone so I couldn’t be
sure.I would be a miserable witness in
court.I would give evidence for the
prosecution and then the defence would rise and ask me to confirm exactly how
many units of alcohol I consume daily.So I nudged the guy next to me and asked him if that wasn’t the same
woman who shortly before had been leading an angelic little boy by the
hand.He, then Marcia, confirmed it was.

‘Well,
where is the little boy then?’

One of the
lads leapt off the empty beer crate he was using as a chair, caught up with her
and asked her.‘She says her husband
came along in his car and took the boy home as she will be staying for the
night service’, he said when he came back.Sounds perfectly reasonable, doesn’t it?And it did to us.The Catholics
have their Mass every Saturday night at midnight so maybe, this still being the
afternoon, she was just looking after the boy until her husband pitched up and
took him home so she could enjoy a night of reckless religious abandon.None of us were paying any attention to the
cars that occasionally swept by.

Marcia wasn’t
satisfied.‘Get out there and look for
him’, she ordered.

It is only
five hundred metres to the end of the road beyond which is only river and
jungle.We searched down the river bank
on the way back but there was no sign of him.Marcia sent one of the lads after the woman but she had disappeared. So we all went back to our beers.

Early
Sunday morning the battered body of a little boy, estimated age four years,
washed up on the bank of the river.

While
history has demonstrated that Africans are not averse to creating them, they
seem desperately squeamish about handling dead bodies so no-one was willing to
fetch the poor little innocent sod out of the river.Marcia, who can’t swim, asked me to.

I couldn’t.

A few
months ago, a fisherman fell over board and drowned and I fetched his body out
with no problem.I lie.Of course I felt sorry for him.Compassion, a regret for the grief and
uncertain future his family faced.But
please, Marcia, I beg you, don’t make me stare at another dead child.Not one that has been so brutally
murdered.

What
possible motive could there be for taking the life of a child?What could a four year old have done in his
pathetically short life to earn such terrible retribution?Would his countenance be the one of someone
finally at peace? Or would it bear
testimony to the terror of his last few moments on earth?Would his eyes bear witness to that ultimate
betrayal of trust?

‘Marcia, I
am sorry, I can’t do it’, I sobbed. ‘I
will if there is no-one else!’ I called after her retreating back.After all these years, I finally chickened
out. I could not face it anymore. I can't. What a fucking waster.

Marcia
called Luisa from the lodge next door.She was once a nurse in a trauma unit in Jo’burg.She waded in and fetched the little tyke out.

They came
back.‘His head has been bashed in at
the back’ Marcia said.

‘Marcia,
for God’s sake please!’ I begged.

At this
point, seeing my discomfort, and I know she did, Luisa could have quickly
changed the subject but what alternative topic could have sprung to mind faced
with such a senseless and brutal death of a child?

I knew it
was a bit odd to see a woman in church rig leading a child down a dead end, for
it is a road that leads to nowhere.Yet
I did nothing.We more or less accepted
her explanation so the search Marcia insisted we conducted was very cursory.

Perhaps
what I was really too cowardly to face was looking down at the battered earthly
remains of the sweet boy I had last seen clutching his little bottle of water trusting
in an adult, as all kids must, knowing that I was suspicious of that adult yet
did NOTHING.And then, then I did not
even have the balls to get in the river and recover his poor little body,

God Curse
Me to Fucking Hell.But, sweet little
boy, I am so terribly sorry.I really
am. If only I had jumped off my beer
crate when I first got nervous. And then
I didn’t have the courage to pull you from the river so I could cradle you in
my arms and tell you how sorry I was but I am sure God will. I can’t hold you because the Police have taken you away but I am very, very sorry.

I am so
ashamed.When I saw you being towed
along past my shop, I was curious.If
only I had been arsed to put down my beer to satisfy that curiosity.

I now know
that it wasn’t your Mum leading you with your little bottle of
water down my road so I feel even worse.It will be no consolation to you dear little boy but we found the lady
who took you away and she won’t do it again. Trust me, we will find your Mum and she will hold you just once more like I should have done and am so desperately sorry I didn't.

You poor
little bugger.I am not sure God will
value my prayers but I have prayed for you every night since. Poor little boy
in your flippy floppy flip flops and Spiderman T-shirt.I only saw you so briefly but you looked like
an angel.I really hope you are one now.

I just hope God
believes me this time.Like I said, damn
ME to hell but may He please look after this little boy whose soul, through what
I failed to do, I can now only offer into His Gracious care.Dear God, he passed within three feet of me. Five minutes later he was beaten to death.

Sunday, 18 November 2012

Why do my spliffs always fall apart before I get the chance to light them?

Meet Rastaman. He is thatching the roof of my barbecue area and he is also a sculptor. He is going to carve the pillars of my Jango and across the lintel over the bar, he is going to carve a row of marching Hippos.

Saturday, 17 November 2012

…. go fishing,
preferably with a bunch of caustic, piss taking old bastards.The kind of mates who will spot an open
festering wound, stick their fingers in it, wiggle them around a bit and ask
you if it hurts.Nothing like a bit of
non-sympathy to get you back on the plane.

So early yesterday
morning we pulled out of the Barro de Kwanza at about twenty knots and headed west.
The sea was rough and as leaden as the
sky.A few squalls saw us all wet
through and wondering what sort of day it would be.

Well, it
turned out bloody fantastic.

It wasn’t
just the company, it wasn’t just the fishing; see below, I was not the only one
to haul in a few prize specimens (it is a big video file so if you are bored
with seeing fish jumping on the end of a line, don’t bother). It was everything else.

We saw Dolphins running
along side the boat.We saw flying
fish.We saw turtles.And then for the first time ever in my life,
I saw whales.A mother and her calf.Whales are big. If you are in a twenty eight foot plastic tub
in the Atlantic ocean they are absolutely bloody massive.I am sure that there are plenty of Japanese and Norwegian whalers who
are quite blasé about such a sight but I was dumb struck.

Sunday, 11 November 2012

I have made for you a song
And it may be right or wrong,
But only you can tell me if it's true.
I have tried for to explain
Both your pleasure and your pain,
And, Thomas, here's my best respects to you!
O there'll surely come a day
When they'll give you all your pay,
And treat you as a Christian ought to do;
So, until that day comes round,
Heaven keep you safe and sound,
And, Thomas, here's my best respects to you!
God bless those who died in the service of their country. God help those who survived.

I will
admit, the shit has hit the fan for me over the landwars. I don’t want to bore you all with a bitter
tirade but I really did want to do something for the community here.Clean water, a clinic, help with the
school.I have already arranged for all
the kids to have four free hours of golf lessons per week to keep them off the
street and out of mischief.Instead the
Administradora, the Co-ordinador and the Vice-Coordinador have decided that all
my access to the river belongs to them.This seriously screws my project.

So I am
fighting, and will go down fighting but I am depressed.The single greatest impediment to progress in
Africa is corruption.It does not matter
how many bits of notarized bits of paper you have, someone will come along and
say, ‘Oh, he did not have the authority to sign that document so you have lost
your money’.

Of course I
am depressed.

Then there
is the petty theft.Anything that isn’t
bolted down WILL be stolen.I have lost
my brand new 45 Kva generator, everything in the shop including the shelves, light
fittings and plug sockets, two cameras (so no pics on the blog anymore), a
mobile phone, some of my shoes, all of Alex’s shoes and, bizarrely, all my
underwear, socks and handkerchiefs. The rough seams of Chinese made cotton
shorts really rip into your nuts if they aren’t protected by a decent pair of Y
Fronts.

Of course I
am depressed.

And yet if
I say that Africans are the most disgusting, shortsighted, stupid, venal, vile
dishonest creatures on earth I would be accused of racism (as well as a huge generalisation but bear with me, I am stressed so somewhat irrational, after all I am married to an African and she is great). As a foreigner, I can’t even punch them out
(everyone else except my wife) which would at least make me feel a little better, until they turned up with
the police who would give me the blunt choice of coughing up some serious dough
or letting them kick the shit out of me.

Of course I
am depressed.

But then we
must not forget that I paid an Englishman on the 4th of January this
year to complete my project and he promised delivery in six weeks.Eleven months later I am still living, with
my family, in the 16 square metres of what will be the kitchen of my new restaurant.

So of
course I am depressed.

Realizing
that if he, the Englishman who I trusted, went bust there was absolutely no way
I would get my money back I used my industry contacts to get him a half a
million dollar contract to sort out his cash flow problem and he still has only
five guys allocated to my project.

So I am
depressed.

Marcia
pointed out that no-one with even the most tenuous grasp of his senses would
pay a contractor up front and accused me of doing so only because the guy was
English and in spite of tropical temperatures has been icy in bed with me ever since.

Of course
she is absolutely correct so I can add shame and sexual frustration to my depression.

A German
friend of mine got into difficulty and needed a bung of five grand.All I had was two and a half.He promised to pay it back within a
week.That was three months ago.I have not heard from him since.

This depresses
me.

Ten years ago,
another friend had problems and needed to pay his kid’s school fees in UK so I
coughed 25 grand.He fucked me over.

That really
depressed me.

I have a
pistol in my desk drawer.I was seriously
thinking about using it.Not to slot
myself, but all those bastards who have either let me down or screwed me.I took it apart, cleaned it and oiled it up
nicely.I even serviced the truck so it
was guaranteed, as far as you can guarantee anything built in China, to get me
into town.I hadn’t considered getting
back.I was that close.

Then I get
a couple of messages through the blogosphere from Megan and John.

The gun
needed a good clean anyway so it can now continue to rest comfortably in its drawer. The truck is breathing easier through its new filters and with fresh oil, there are a few moving parts blessing my effort. Alex seems to have picked up a bit of a cough
so I will now make him some German Brust Tee. Marcia is busy cooking a
Portuguese Feijoada with rice which you would have to be an absolute philistine
not to enjoy, especially with lashings of ultra spicy local gindungo.

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Hippo

My other blog

The boring bit

I first came to Africa in the early 90's, supposedly for one year. Six months in Mozambique followed by six months in Angola and then home again. Over 20 years later, I am still here.
I have gone where the jobs were, in mine clearance, security, the oil industry, anything that would put bread on the table. I have a farm in southern Angola and am building a lovely restaurant and hotel on the banks of the Rio Kwanza where the river spills into the Atlantic ocean. I am 55 years old, have two sons aged 16 and 6, a longtime girlfriend 21 years my junior, three dogs and a fine goose which we keep meaning to eat at Christmas but somehow never do.